Samuel No.10 Jonathan's Creed

Nice to have had your company, if you're a visitor, at the tab. Can I say for those who are in that category that it's our practice Sunday by Sunday to let the Word of God, that's the Bible, speak to us. In other words, I don't just come up here and select a topical subject like Wimbledon or what have you and try and work out one or two spiritual applications from that, but rather we come to the Word of God, we work our way through a passage, and we try to lift out principles from that and apply it to our own hearts.

And we have for quite some while now been working our way through the book of Samuel. So if you'll turn to 1 Samuel, in chapter 14, a passage so energetically read to us, so feelingfully, we're going to base our remarks on that. If you don't have a Bible, then you'll find that the person next to you is very friendly and will share his copy with you, just to help as I turn to it from time to time.

Father, we just ask for your blessing upon these moments that we spend together right now, studying your holy and inspired Word. Help us to latch on to the principles that are down deep in the Old Testament and find their help for the complex lives that we live in the 20th century, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen.

I have a book amongst the hundreds that I have in my library in the office just at the top of the pulpit steps there called Men of the Covenant. It's a very good book. It's about the Scots years ago, centuries ago, and the tremendous way in which great men of God were able to hazard their lives for the cause of the evangel, for the cause of the gospel, men of the covenant, men of the creed, men who knew what they believed, why they believed it, and had all their lives steered by the faith that was theirs.

I always feel that someone who doesn't know the creed, and I'm not just referring to repeating the creed in the Anglican church or non-conformist churches, but actually knowing the creed, embracing it, the person who doesn't live their life by the creed, by a summary statement of the Christian faith is just like the Virgin Atlantic trying to negotiate that stretch of water without a rudder. Now the likelihood is that without a rudder you'll go all over the place. You'll never arrive at a specific destination.

I want to ask you for starters, do you have a rudder in your life? Do you have a creed, not something that's just mental that you will read out when you're invited to on the occasions regularly or rarely when you come to church, or have you got something that you embrace that becomes the motivating, the directional factor in the whole of your life? I trust that you have, and I want to bring you an address this morning which I'm going to entitle Jonathan's Creed. Jonathan's Creed. I'm just going to be introducing this character of whom we read in the 14th chapter of 1 Samuel, and we shall come across him time and time again as we make our way through this rather interesting book.

You see, already coming across the pages of Scripture, we've seen in this series quite a number of very interesting people. We've seen, for example, Hannah who is a lady whose story dominates the first couple of chapters, and then we've come across the character of Eli, and Samuel, and also Saul. But now we're going to be looking at this most remarkable, lovely personality, that of Jonathan.

He's the son of King Saul, but for him the little proverb, like father like son, doesn't apply. Thank God he wasn't like his father. He is a man, however, who can speak to us today because, quite frankly, I would that the Holy Spirit might make many a Jonathan out of our church congregation here.

He's a man who has a particular rudder by which he steers his life. There's something, there is a commitment to some person which affects everything that he does as he makes his way through his relatively short life. And it seems to me that the creed of Jonathan is well summed up in the sixth verse of the fourteenth chapter, towards the end.

The context I'll sketch out in a moment or two. Here are the words, nothing can hinder the Lord from saving whether by many or by few. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving whether by many or by few.

What Jonathan had was a deep commitment that in charge of his life and the affairs of Israel was none other than the Lord his God. And he reckoned that as a result of that he could take mileage, he could take his direction, he could base on that, he could base his whole life. Now let's try and open up.

What I've suggested to you is Jonathan's creed, nothing can hinder the Lord from saving whether by many or by few. Let me first of all sketch out for you the conditions in which this belief of Jonathan emerged. The conditions in which the belief of Jonathan emerged.

Now there are some people who feel that, you know, the religious type, well, he has a pretty easy background. You know, his parents were churchgoers, he had a good job, he's had good health. It's always been easy for him to believe in God and that's the reason why he's committed to the Christian faith.

But if you were to analyze the character of Jonathan you wouldn't find that that explanation actually fits. The conditions in which Jonathan's creedal statement, nothing can hinder the Lord from saving whether by many or by few, were not actually helpful for the conclusions that Jonathan drew. You say, what do you mean? Well, you see, Jonathan was around in history at a time when the Philistines were attacking the Hebrews.

Jonathan's father, as I've indicated, was King Saul. At first he was a very valiant man but then Saul became quite melancholic and perhaps schizophrenic. And as a result of Saul not remaining true to the call of God upon his life, the prophet Samuel had come along and said to Saul, no longer will the Lord establish your kingdom on the earth.

In other words, when you're through someone else will take over the throne. And there was a great spirit of depression in Israel at the time that Jonathan came to make this creedal statement. It's well worked out in the previous chapter as you see there the background that emerges from which this creedal statement is found.

It's a background where the Israelite army are knowing diminishing forces, diminishing forces. Look at the sixth verse of chapter 13, when the men of Israel saw that their situation was critical and that their army was hard pressed, they hid in caves and thickets amongst the rocks in pits and cisterns. Some Hebrews even crossed the Jordan to the land of Gad and Gilead.

And now let's imagine the second world war. If the Germans were just beginning to invade our own land and the heart of the British people was in a state of depression and fear and some of the troops they hid and others crossed over and joined the side of the Nazis. Now that's the situation that you've got at the time that Jonathan utters his creedal statement, one in which the forces of Israel are diminishing.

Incidentally the army of Israel has a depleted armory. If you look at the tail end of chapter 13 you'll discover that there were only two swords, incredibly enough, in the whole of the army. So on the day of the battle not a soldier with Saul and Jonathan had a sword or spear in his hand, only Saul and his son Jonathan had them.

It seems almost unbelievable that the Philistines could be invading in a three-pronged attack the territory of Israel and there were only two men who had swords. A time of diminishing forces, a time of depleted armory. Maybe the reason for the lack of swords was the trust that Saul and Jonathan, being Benjaminites, had in the sling.

I don't know. But one of the things that the Philistines, the enemies of Israel, had been able to do was to take over the manufacture of steel or rather of metal and there isn't a blacksmith, verse 19, to be found in the whole of the land of Israel. So these are the conditions you see which emerge, diminishing forces, a depleted armory and what's more, as far as Jonathan is concerned, there's a dispirited father.

Look at verse 2, will you, of the 14th chapter. Saul was staying on the outskirts of Gibeah under a pomegranate tree in Migron. With him were about 600 men and so forth.

Here's the mighty Saul. On one occasion he had had thousands of men who would have done anything that he wished when he was a charismatic leader, when he was true to the Lord who had called him to be a king. But since he had disobeyed the Lord, his charisma had evaporated and as a result of that, the men who were in allegiance to him, they'd melted away like the early Jew in the Palestine morning.

So put those three things together and this is the condition that you find Jonathan is in. It's a deteriorating or a diminishing force of men on his side. There's a depleted armory and there's a dispirited father.

If ever there were conditions that might have contributed to a man losing faith, losing heart, then I reckon these were the conditions. Now let's say, just to lift this up to 20th century life, there are many examples of people who are in exactly the same condition as Jonathan. You see they have a deep and a real faith in God.

They live their lives by a creedal statement but the conclusions that they arrived at were not helped by the conditions in which they lived. I've more times than I can quite remember been out in Asia and Africa and come face to face with many a dear Christian person, a national who's been committed to Jesus Christ, perhaps in the midst of animism or in the midst of Hinduism. And with everything against them, they nonetheless have carved out for themselves a creed by which they live their lives.

Let's bring it to worthing. I've known many an individual from a family trust Jesus Christ as Saviour, become in the terminology of the family religious. And sometimes it's as though all hell has been let loose against them in trying to dislodge them from the commitment that they have made.

But they have such a real trust in the Lord God, in Jesus Christ as their Saviour, that they too live their lives by the of the creed, by a commitment to Christianity. Some of you might be in that condition. Some of you therefore are very much in the same category as Jonathan who gives us his creed and shows us that the conditions from which his belief emerged were hardly helpful to a man finding faith.

But not only do we find in those words of the creedal statement of Jonathan nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few, not only do we discover as we place it into the background the conditions in which it emerged, but also from the context you'll discover the consistency by which it was applied. The consistency by which it was applied. Our Lord Jesus was a Jonathan, you know, in many a sense.

In fact there are certain aspects of Jonathan which I think point to the greater than Jonathan, even the Lord Jesus Christ. He was a man who was in a minority position and he was a man who lived utterly consistently in regard to the beliefs that he shared with others. Now sometimes he was completely on his own, on one occasion when he was arrested and he was done to death at the cross.

With the exception of a handful of women folk he was completely on his own. There was a consistency illustrated by our Lord Jesus in the way that he maintained his creed, which is well shown forth also by Jonathan. When Jonathan is made aware of the increasing problems that confront Israel because of the hostility and the largeness of the Philistine army, what do we discover him doing? Well, will you look into the first verse, the last part of the first verse of the fourteenth chapter.

Acting completely on his own as a freelancer, he says, come to his armour bearer, let's go over to the Philistine outposts on the other side. The consistency with which he applies his creed is illustrated with the resolution, I argue, of the freelancer. Let's go over to the Philistine outpost on the other side.

But he did not tell his father. And in the second verse or the end of the third verse, we're further informed, no one was aware that Jonathan had left. Why were they leaving the camp, he and his armour bearer, on their own, without cognizance, without intelligence being granted to Saul and the rest of the men? Well, for this reason, it would have been no help to them at all had others known.

I'm reminded of the statement in the New Testament from the lips of one man who, when he realizes what the purposes of God were, he does not consult flesh and blood. He goes on his own initiative. This is a thing, you see, about the man who's got a creed.

He's not concerned if there are millions on his side or not. If the creed comes from God, if the command that he derives from the creed belongs to the Lord, then he'll go out alone, one man, with God, believed to be the majority. Now I come back to you, my friend, here in Worthing.

You may feel that this historical narrative has very little to do with you. It has everything to do with a man, with a woman, who's forced into circumstances spiritually that leave them isolated. If God is telling you to do a thing, and you realize that the command comes from the Lord, then you have a right, as did Jonathan, of being a freelancer.

That was Jesus, you see. He tells his disciples, you remember on one occasion, we're off to Jerusalem. But they know that the Jewish authorities, the religious authorities, like a pack of wolves, are ready to get him and them.

And so they have a unanimous agreement to Jesus, not Jerusalem. But the Bible says that Jesus Christ set his face towards Jerusalem as a flint. In other words, you couldn't move him.

This freelancer had a personality that's made of granite, and he moves alone, or will do if the disciples refuse to follow, into the very lair of his enemies because he believes that this is God's purposes. Consistent with a man who has a creed is the resolution of the freelancer. And so we see Jonathan and his armor-bearer setting off from the camp of six hundred men with saw, moving towards the thousands and thousands of Philistines who are a little distanced from them.

But not only do you find there the resolution of a freelancer, you also discover within Jonathan in this fourteenth chapter what I call the recollection of a clear thinker. The recollection of a clear thinker. You see, he moves towards the Philistines, verse four.

He's going to have some obstacle, we'll come back to that in a moment or two. But one of the things that is very paramount in his mind as he speaks to the armor-bearer, as he addresses the Lord, showing the faith that he has in God, is that God can bring about his purposes, the routing of the Philistines, even by just using him and his armor-bearer. Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.

You see, it was Moses who said in Deuteronomy chapter thirty-two and verse thirty, one man can chase a thousand and two can set ten thousand to flight. Jonathan appreciates this, that the word of God promises that if he is moving in line with what he believes about God, then he's no need to be worried about the smallness of the number who are on his side. Now when Jonathan moves towards the Philistines, you discover he has obstacles.

As whenever you attempt the purposes of God, you are confronted with obstacles. Look at verse four, on each side of the pass that Jonathan intended to cross to reach the Philistine outpost was a crag. There was a crag.

One was called Bozes and the other Sina. One crag stood to the north towards Mikmash, the other to the south towards Geba. In other words, to achieve the purposes of God for Jonathan, the going was rough.

He had problems to the right of him. He had problems to the left of him. These crags, which were known as the teeth of the cliff to the locals, were almost insurpassable.

And here is Jonathan on his own, moving towards the Philistines and he has great difficulties. It reminds me of the Apostle Paul. You recall in the opening chapters of the second letter to the Corinthians, who tells us something of the nature of his discipleship, how it was a very costly thing.

He said, sometimes I had troubles in front of me and sometimes I had troubles behind. Wherever I looked, there were these towering crags, these incredible difficulties, over which I had to get if I was to be true to the purposes of the Lord. Now there are many of us who at times in our lives are brought into situations that are analogous, that are comparable to that.

You think of a woman who has suddenly been widowed. On the one hand, she has got a bereavement to cope with, the sadness of heart. On the other hand, she has a loneliness to cope with, the fact that her loved one is no longer with her.

I have seen those two crags in many an experience of Christian workers around the world. On the one hand, the depression that comes for working for God and seeing absolutely alas, no response. On the other hand, the isolation when there is nobody around to help and to give encouragement.

Now what do you do when you find yourself in this sort of circumstance? Well, you need the recollection of a clear thinker, as had Jonathan. He speaks to his armor bearer. He instructs him, nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.

And looking towards the heights on which the Philistines are on, he goes on in verse 16 to say, if they say, come to us, we will climb up because that will be a sign that the Lord has given them into our hands. We'll climb, we'll scale over our difficulties. Now you, you men and women who are bought by the Lord of Christ, when sometimes you're confronted with the two crags of Bosez and Sina, difficulties on the one hand and difficulties on the left hand, whatever your difficulties may be, the word of the Lord comes to you.

Climb up, climb up higher than your difficulties. Appreciate that in control of the whole circumstance, even though the Philistines do not know it, even though Saul is blind to it, over and above all of your circumstances, there is the providential care of God, who guarantees his protection and his help to all those who are trusting him and living their lives as a result of the creedal statement to which they have committed themselves. Now you see, the old Puritans knew this.

It's the way that they were able to cope with their lives. I'm referring to men and women in the era of John Calvin and so forth. It's the way that the old evangelists of the evangelical movement in England used to be able to condition their lives in the 18th century when there was great hostility to the Christian church and when there was as much apathy and antagonism as there is today.

The realization that the soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose, he cannot, he will not desert to its foes. That soul all hell should endeavor to shake, he will not, he cannot, he dare not forsake. Jonathan sets off in the company of his armor bearer and he is able to move with the resolution of a freelancer and he's stimulated by the recollection of a clear thinker as he appreciates that the Lord is with him as he moves towards his objective of routing the Philistines.

So what have we looked at thus far? Well, the creedal statement of Jonathan, nothing can hinder the Lord from saving whether by many or by few. And I've shown you something of the conditions in which it has emerged and I have shown you something of the consistency with which it was applied. But now let me close up by endeavoring to draw out from this chapter the consequences by which it was marked, the consequences by which it was marked.

You see, when a man lives a life of faith, he's bound to influence others. When a man is sold out in the purposes of God, he ultimately will know a measure of success in bringing about the plan of the Lord in his life and perhaps in the lives of other people. Now this is obviously illustrated here in the story of Jonathan.

He and his armor bearer are able to climb onto the hilly plateau on which the Philistines have been looking down upon the Israelites and sending their men in a triplet of divisions. And when Jonathan gets there, he is now so full of faith that he believes that he will be absolutely successful in what the Lord has called him to do. Will you look at the tail end of the 12th verse? Climb up after me, says Jonathan to his armor bearer.

The Lord has given them into the hands of Israel. Now see how his faith has increased. When he starts off, it was a very determined effort and yet there was an if, a maybe, a perhaps about it.

Look at verse 6, will you? The tail end of verse 6. Perhaps the Lord will act on our behalf. I do believe that this is possible. God can make me successful in this circumstance.

Perhaps he will do. He has the ability. I believe that nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few.

But now you see, some mileage has been given. He's further down the road, or more exactly, he's further up the mountainside. He's actually staring eyeball to eyeball with the Philistines.

And so he says to his armor bearer, come up to see us. He says to his armor bearer that the Lord has given them, the tail end of verse 12, the Lord has given them into the hand of Israel. This is the thing about the life of faith, you see.

When you start to take risks in the purposes of God, your faith increases. It really does. I've seen this again on the part of so many missionaries.

They left these shores with a faltering faith. They believed that somehow God would use them abroad and yet with that faith there was also a modicum of temerity. And then as they saw God bless them and keep them in one situation after another situation after another situation, so their faith began to grow until they become men and women of a full faith.

I've seen it amongst the nationals. I think at the moment of a brother in one of the slum areas in Karachi, one of the most remarkable men to whom I've made reference before from this pulpit that I've ever met in my life, how when born as a child who didn't know his parentage in Burma, years ago he was able to find faith in the Lord Jesus as his life developed and then started off on one of the most unwritten, incredible missionary journeys of the 20th century. Preaching the gospel throughout the whole of North India, going through to Pakistan and eventually doing a work for God in Karachi with no visible means of support whatsoever.

And when you ask him how he has got such a faith, he'll start to tell you of those days when in the obscurity of Burma he set off on this incredible journey and God blessed him and supplied his need time and time and time again to the extent that now he's utterly reckless in his faith. A person can be that, you see, because when they stand by the creedal statement that we have just been reading, when they recognize that God is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, that he descended onto planet earth and revealed himself in the person of the Lord Jesus, when they really believe that God has atoned for the sins of the world in the death and resurrection of Christ and that Jesus Christ is coming back to this world again as the creed states and that this living God in the interim is in a relationship with those who call upon him as they address their prayers, so they can almost go through this world blase. I'd qualify that word, but they can go through the world with a full faith, a faith which has developed in the fact that this God of the creed is a living God who involves himself in their lives.

So the consequences by which this creedal life of Jonathan, if I can refer to it like that, one of them is shown by the increasing faith that Jonathan he has himself, and another is by the authenticating power of God. Look at the 15th verse. He gets up on top of this hilly plateau and then panic strikes the whole army.

Why? Well, the ground shakes. Who caused the ground to shake? The latter part of the 15th verse supplies the answer. It was a panic sent by God.

You see, when he calls you to do something, he's involved in the realization of the purpose that he has committed you to. In other words, he will send the resources. That's why the apostle Paul, another Jonathan type, is able to say in the New Testament, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

This is a living God. You see, this creed, I keep saying it, perhaps ad nauseam, but it needs to be said, because there are thousands of people in the Anglican church, in non-conformist churches, this Sunday, who will repeat what Ted Davy got us to repeat in the tabernacle, and they do not believe it. They repeat it like parrots repeat things.

But they have no overwhelming assurance that this great God of whom the creed speaks is a living God, who will involve himself in their affairs, in their circumstances. Jonathan couldn't give a fig for an academic theology. His faith grew in the most dispiriting circumstances, and it was a living faith.

And he began to prove that one or two with God was indeed a majority. And as he has at his life in the service of God, so God, in a most remarkable way, vindicated the faith of Jonathan. And as it was then, so it is today.

And as a result, another consequence of Jonathan's amazing faith of living by the creed was the return of many backsliders to the army of the Lord. Look at verse 21 and 22. All the Hebrew rabbits came up from the burrow, from the warrens.

Those Hebrews who had previously been with the Philistines and had gone up with them to their camp went over to the Israelites. The quislings came back. Verse 22, when all the Israelites had hidden in the hill country, you see, Hebrew rabbits was not an exaggeration on my part.

That's really what they had done. When they'd hidden in the country and they saw what was happening, then they came in. Why? Well, they wanted to be on the victory side.

I mean, who wants to be a loser? Whether it's at Wimbledon, or whether it's in Mexico, or whether it's in the purposes of God, we want to be on the victory side. Now, how is it that all these people found fresh heart? Well, they did so because of a chap by the name of Jonathan. And don't say that he came to faith in an easy way, because as I've told you on two occasions, he didn't.

It was difficult for him. But when he got his equilibrium, when he got enthusiastic in the purposes of God, he influenced other people. Indeed, his armor bearer was the first one who came under the magnetism.

Go back to his creedal statement, nothing can hinder the Lord from saving, whether by many or by few. And his armor bearer says, do all that you have in mind. Go ahead.

I am with you heart and soul. Now, as I said, I believe in one sense. Jonathan typifies our Lord Jesus.

You see, he's a man who takes the world on, isn't he? Jesus contra mundum. Jesus against the world. At one stage, everyone, including his disciples, have left him.

And yet, when those with spiritual vision look on at Jesus Christ, they see that this is a man who's moving from a minority position with great power, with great authority. He dies on the cross, and he's raised again on the third day. Rational people believe that because there's so much evidence to attest the resurrection of Christ.

Now, he's the only one who ever claimed to come back. Why did he die? These are questions that need to be asked by thinking people. Why was he raised? Well, he died for the sins of the world.

He was raised for the justification of people like you and me who have sinned. Now, increasingly, people are beginning to realize this. Down the centuries, thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, millions of people, and their hearts are changed as a result of coming face to face with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

You see, they're like the armor bearer, who, when he sees the example of Jonathan, says, I'm with you in heart and soul. There's nothing else that I can do but live in your purposes, follow under your direction, be under your control. You see, the man has been captivated by the consistency of the one who made the creedal statement.

And so, he reckons himself to be on the side of Jonathan and all the other Hebrews, the quislings who crossed over, those who hid in the holes. They come out too, and they nail their colors to the mass. Now, what I'm asking, not because I have the bugle to blow the clarion call of Jonathan, but because I blow the clarion call for Jesus Christ, I'm asking you, come out of your hole.

Come away from your quisling position. It's difficult for you to have faith. It was difficult for Jonathan.

It is hard for you to maintain the working out of your faith. It was hard for Jonathan to be consistent, but he was. It's hard for you to put your trust in Jesus Christ, you say.

It will be increasingly harder for you if you're not there on his side on the day when the great God brings the whole of time to its conclusion and asks you to give an account for the way that you live your life and the reason why you neglected the great creedal statement that is the Christian gospel and did not live by it. May Jonathan's creed be an address that will live on in your mind and bring you to a practical, not an academic, commitment to the cause of Christianity. Amen.

Now, let's sing a hymn that makes reference to those who have faith in Jesus Christ. 350. I haven't sung this for quite a long time, but it's well worth singing.

It's a good hymn. I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed unto him against that day. Now, don't sing this unless you mean it, or else you make nonsense of it.

This is a personal hymn. You're addressing it not to me, not to one another. This time, you're addressing it to God.

So, if this is your response, then sing it with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is allowed in Worthing Tabernacle, but if you don't mean it, then don't make a hypocrite out of yourself by singing what is not true to your conviction. If this is the first time that you've meant it, in acknowledgement to the explanation of the gospel as I've tried to bring it this morning, then make it your commitment to Jesus Christ.

350. Let's stand and sing. To live against that day, leave it up for me, O weary one, to behold his face I see.

But I know whom I have believed, and I'm persuaded that he's able to keep that which I've committed to him.